NEW DELHI, Aug. 13 (Xinhua) -- India's federal health ministry on Thursday confirmed that total deaths in the country due to COVID-19 have surpassed the 47,000-mark, reaching 47,033, as the total cases reached 2,396,637.

Over the past 24 hours, a total of 66,999 new cases were added to the tally, and as many as 942 people died, according to the data.

Still there are a total of 653,622 active cases in the country, as 1,695,982 people have been successfully cured and discharged. Over the past 24 hours 56,383 people were discharged from various hospitals across the country, which is said to be a new high.

Over the past two weeks, a single day spike of over 50,000 new cases have been registered in the country, and at times even more than 60,000 new cases per day. This is mainly due to ramping up of samples testing.

As per the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), till Wednesday a total of 26,845,688 samples were tested out of which 830,391 samples were tested on Wednesday alone.